Saturday, February 20, 2010

Taking suggestions on where to poll next weekend...

Coming next week we'll have polls from Texas (early indications are that Medina is fading) and New Mexico.

Where should we poll next weekend? We're open to suggestions on states and Congressional districts. Usual criteria applies- we're not real interested in doing anything that there's a saturation of polling on, there has to be a 2010 Senate/Gubernatorial race for the statewide ones (sorry, Montana), and we're trying to do a variety of stuff (not going to do another Virginia Congressional district at this time.)

81 comments:

I would like to see a poll for WA senate. Several pundits have said Patty Murray may not be in as strong a position as she should be. To my knowledge there haven't been any major polls done to support this claim.

Indiana now that senate candidates are clearer. You could try Washington or Oregon measuring people that haven't been polled. What if Gordon Smith or Greg Walden ran? Cathy McMorris-Rogers? Rasmussen is really the only one to do various Washington candidates who are running.

If there's a big change in the House composition there will have to be big Republican gains in the Northeast, particularly in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York. Twenty-two Democratic seats are somewhere on Charlie Cook's list.

On second thought, don't poll NY-upstate. People won't believe you there anyway after the NY-23 disaster and you have no way to prove them wrong until you do a spot-on final pre-election poll somewhere there.

I'd certainly like to see NJ-3 (Adler) too. (Also curious about how the Republican football player is doing there, but maybe that's too early to ask.)

There is a special Congressional election coming up in Hawaii -- half the state -- and you could maybe get the whole state for Governor (very open with competitive primary) and Senate (Inouye should be safe, but who knows?.)

I would like to see polling at WA, CA, WI,IN or OR Senate. There have been few polls on these races. And I have a feeling that Murray is vulnerable. And I want to see that if now that Bayh is gone, the Dems have no hope in IN.

Rasmussen has already shown that Murray is vulnerable. What would be new to see is a poll of both NY senate seats. I strongly suspect that both Gillibrand and Schumer would top out below 50. Both are vulnerable with decent candidate recruitment.

I know it's being heavily polled, but could you do an Indiana Poll? With, I know it sounds crazy, John Mellencamp on the senate ticket? Also, do all of the congressional districts, as it seems that the 3rd, 8th, 4th and 2nd districts will be a bit more competitive than last year.

Wisconsin would seem to fit the bill. Also another idea would be to poll in Indiana and try Ellsworth's district (IN-8) after his apparent decision to run for Senate to see if that's a Republican takeover or not.

South Carolina Governor's primary. The GOP primary has had 0 polling and the field has at least 3 1st class contenders and the Dems will have a heated primary too. This is one state where you can look at the primary for both parties and it will be close and critical.

There's been a lot of polls of NY Statewide. But instead, do upstate New York and see how Gillibrand is faring there as well as the dozens of competitive house seats.

Some others...1. Georgia - Is Isakson really not vulnerable? If Baker switched to this race to challenge him how close would he be? Nobody has tested this race yet.2. Georgia Gov - A Rasmussen poll had Barnes ahead or 1 point behind his challengers. 3. Alabama Gov - Davis was competitive the last time you polled here.4. Colorado - Hasn't been polled a lot since Ritter removed himself. Is Hickenlooper competitive?5. Ohio GOV - Is it time for Ted Strickland to step aside? Are there any Democrats who can do better?6. Ohio SEN - hasn't been polled recently.7. Hawaii SEN - On the off chance Lingle gets in.

House races:1. OR-05: Scott Bruun vs Kurt Schrader, classic race with no polling, competitive district. If Wyden is leading in this district, a more moderate district in the state, he is probably leading by a good margin statewide.2. AL-02: Bright vs Roby and Bright vs Barber: extremely competitive.3. AR-01: Can democrats retain this conservative district?4. KS-04: A top recruit of the cycle for Democrats who is fundraising well. (Raj Goyle)5. CA-36-DEM: Is Harman's position hurt because of that scandal she was involved in?6. FL-08: Alan Grayson's district

Okay here is one no one else is doing: the House races in Massachusetts. Scott Brown carried 7 out of the 10 congressional districts and for a change all 10 of them have Republican opposition (as opposed to 3 in 2008). Was Brown's election due to him and the campaign he ran or has the voter malaise spread to the congressional races?

Only one poll has been done in these races, MA-10 by McLaughlin & Associates and it shows Rep. Delahunt down by 3 to Malone. That was before the Amy Bishop scandal broke and we found out that Delahunt was involved in letting her get off from shooting her brother. One can imagine what the results would be now.

We show the Republicans competitive in districts 5, 10, 6 and 3 with an outside chance in 2. We even list Rep Tsongas in 5 as likely to lose. This will get you some publicity especially after you were spot on in the Brown Race. See our article, "More Scott Brown Fallout" analyzing these races at http://www.marstonchronicles.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=442&Itemid=1285. We invite you to show us that we are misreading the political tea leaves.

CD: LA-02 Is Cao really as vulnerable as people think or is Obama's good word of him when he was in NOLA helping him? Also, state sen. Ed Murray is considering a run as an independent, see if that provides Cao an opening.

State: Washington. SUSA found Patty Murray's approvals at 43/50 this week, but no polling against any of the candidates or potential candidates. Paul Akers and Don Benton appear to be the GOP front runners for now, unless Dino Rossi or Reichert enter. May also be interesting to see how Cathy McMorris-Rogers fairs.

In Kentucky, the most heated primary has to be the Republican US Senate primary.If you were to ask political machine candidates Paul and Grayson you would not know that the Grassroots candidate, Bill Johnson, is polling at a strong second position (Grayson-Johnson-Paul) in repetitive internals which he has neither requested nor paid for.The reality is such that Grayson and Paul will not release any poll results due to the standings of Johnson and polls without him counted are therefore discounted as invald.A scientific, statistically analyzed poll of likely Republican voters from a large statewide representative sample, including demographic tabs would be extrememly interesting, as interesting as Hayworth-McCain in AZ. Why? Because it's actually citizen candidate Johnson vs McConnell's and Ron Paul's surrogates.Check Johnson out at www.kentuckybill.com .

There hasn't been a good, solid poll of the Kentucky GOP primary since it began. A good poll of this race would include Paul, Grayson and Johnson. Any poll that doesn't include all three names is inherently flawed. It would poll only likely Republican voters and preferably be divided equally by four regions - north, south, east, west. It should specifically ask who the respondent plans to vote for (not a "favorability" rating) and it would be an added bonus to know the strength of support - 'strongly, moderately, leaning'.

I would like to see INDIANA GOP Senate Primary and general matchups. I know RAS has done a general matchup recently and some people questioned that also the GOP polling will give us something that hasnt been done yet (Hostettler vs Coats)

I think New England will be the bell-weather for whether or not Republicans will take back Congress. If they can pick up seats in CT, NH, and even MA and RI then they could very well take back the House.

NH - 1 and 2 CT- 4 and 5 MA - 4,5,6, and 10RI- 1 ME- 1 and 2

A collection of those seats could show if Scott Brown's victory was more than a fluke.

I know I'm just one voice of many, but I would really like to see something out of Connecticut - such as the Republican primary for Senator, potential matchups for Governor (Ned Lamont will probably be the Democrat candidate, but who will be the Republican running against him?), or maybe the District 4 congressional race- Himes won by a slim margin riding on Obama's coattails in a district that usually votes for a Republican congressman, so I think that race will be a lot more competitive than it's being given credit for.

Tom, I think that polling a D incumbent in a small D leaning district (for ex: D+3) with a serious GOP challenger would give a much better picture of where and how far Dems are vulnerable, we might find out that even more, or we might find out that they're only vulnerable in Red areas where Ds are still left (even if these alone are a whole lot too, still). Thanks, I know you'll like it!

I'd love to see polling done in Kentucky for the U.S. Senate, but I'd like to have Bill Johnson included as a choice in the poll. I think there will be a huge surprise at the results of this poll. There seems to be too big an effort to marginalize his candidacy by his opponents and the media. Let' see what transpires when there's a level playing field.

I'd like to see a Kentucky U.S. Senate primary poll with all three Rebublican candidates, Rand Paul, Bill Johnson and Trey Grayson. I think the results will amaze the voters of Kentucky. I'm seeing a groundswell of support for Johnson and it's being ignored by the media. This would be huge news for all three campaigns.

It's a race where there hasn't been any polling, and a race where an incumbent may be more vulnerable than the conventional wisdom suggests.

Boren has attracted several GOP opponents (Dan Arnett, Daniel Edmonds, Howard Houchen, Charles Thompson) and a birther Independent (Miki Booth), and rumor is that former congressman Brad Carson, who held the seat before Boren, might be considering running again (many Democrat leaders are upset with Boren's conservatism).

Boren is assumed to be unbeatable, but he has never had a real opponent (ever), and the feel on the street is that he's not as popular as he once was.

PPP would be the first to poll this district... the only Democrat-held district in Oklahoma.